It’s not just scientists and entrepreneurs we’re locking out, it’s Chinese cooks. Writing in today’s NYT, the Zagats point out that immigration restrictions are hurting Chinese food in America.

[T]he
principal obstacle to improving Chinese fare here is the difficulty of
getting visas for skilled workers since 9/11. Michael Tong, head of the
Shun Lee restaurant group in New York, has said that opening a major
Chinese restaurant in America is next to impossible because it can take
years to get a team of chefs from China. Chinese restaurateur Alan Yau
planned to open his first New York City restaurant last year but was
derailed because he was unable to get visas for his chefs. If Henry Kissinger could practice “Ping-Pong diplomacy,” perhaps
Condoleezza Rice could try her hand at “dumpling diplomacy”?

Eating Beyond Sichuan

TWENTY years ago, American
perceptions of Asian food could be summed up in one word: “Chinese.”
Since then, we have developed appetites for Korean, Japanese, Thai and
Vietnamese fare. Yet while the quality of the restaurants that serve
these cuisines, particularly Japanese, has soared in America, Chinese
restaurants have stalled. For American diners, the Chinese restaurant
experience is the same tired routine — unimaginative dishes served amid
dated, pseudo-imperial décor — that we’ve known for years.

Chinese food in its native land is vastly superior to what’s
available here. Where are the great versions of bird’s nest soup from
Shandong, or Zhejiang’s beggar’s chicken, or braised Anhui-style pigeon
or the crisp eel specialties of Jiangsu? Or what about the tea-flavored
dishes from Hangzhou, the cult-inspiring hairy crabs of Shanghai or the
fabled honeyed ham from Yunnan? Or the Fujianese soup that is so rich
and sought after that it is poetically called “Buddha Jumps Over the
Wall,” meaning it is so good that a Buddhist monk would be compelled to
break his vegetarian vows to sample it?

Like so many other aspects of Chinese life, the culinary scene in
China is thriving. As capitalism has gained ground there, restaurants
have become a place for people to spend their newfound disposable
incomes. Cooking methods passed down within families over the centuries
have become more widely known as chefs brought the traditions to paying
customers. Today, there are a number of regional cuisines known in
China as the Eight Great Traditions (Anhui, Cantonese, Fujian, Hunan,
Jiangsu, Shandong, Sichuan and Zhejiang cuisines). Unless you’ve
visited China, they most likely have never reached your lips.

That’s because the lackluster Cantonese, Hunan and Sichuan
restaurants in this country do not resemble those you can find in
China. There is a historic explanation for the abysmal state of Chinese
cuisine in the United States. Without access to key ingredients from
their homeland, Chinese immigrants working on the Central Pacific
Railroad in the 1860s improvised dishes like chow mein and chop suey
that nobody back in their native land would have recognized. To please
the naïve palates of 19th-century Americans, immigrant chefs used
sweet, rich sauces to coat the food — a radical departure from the
spicy, chili-based dishes served back home.

But today, getting ingredients is no longer an issue. Instead, the
principal obstacle to improving Chinese fare here is the difficulty of
getting visas for skilled workers since 9/11. Michael Tong, head of the
Shun Lee restaurant group in New York, has said that opening a major
Chinese restaurant in America is next to impossible because it can take
years to get a team of chefs from China. Chinese restaurateur Alan Yau
planned to open his first New York City restaurant last year but was
derailed because he was unable to get visas for his chefs.

If Henry Kissinger could practice “Ping-Pong diplomacy,” perhaps
Condoleezza Rice could try her hand at “dumpling diplomacy”? China and
the United States should work together on a culinary visa program that
makes it easier for Chinese chefs to come here. With more chefs who are
schooled in China’s dynamic new restaurant scene, we would see a
transformation of the way Chinese food is served in this country.

Imagine, if you will, what it would be like to discover for the
first time Memphis-style barbecue, New York deli food, soul food and
Creole, Tex-Mex, Southwestern, California and Hawaiian cuisines all at
once. Eating food prepared by an influx of Chinese chefs would be like
opening up a culinary time capsule.

When authentic Chinese cuisines reach our shores, we can expect a
revolution in ingredients and styles that will change the way we
prepare food for years to come. Look how quickly our taste for offal,
sous-vide cooking and tasting menus have grown. We have a much more
ambitious dining culture today than we did 150 years ago.

So, we welcome Chinese chefs to share their authentic cuisines with
us. American palates, unlike those of previous generations, are ready
for the real stuff.

This entry was posted on Friday, June 15th, 2007 at 9:37 am and is filed under International Creative Class. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.